Language: Español
Working with a sociocracy consultant
We offer just the level of hand-holding you want.
By working with a coach, you can benefit from the experience and feedback of someone who has seen dozens of implementations and governance changes.
We never forget that you’re the expert on your organization and culture, and you remain in the driving seat at all times.
What does a consultant or coach do for you?
The consultants identify the stage of implementation your organization is currently at and assess your organization’s needs. They also assess with you what kind of support might be useful to make your next steps effective and successful
Services that are typically part of an implementation:
- assessing training needs
- forming, coaching, and strategizing with the implementation circle/transformation team
- observing and facilitating meetings
- 1:1. or small-group conversations with stakeholders (the board, leadership, or people with concerns) and open Q&A sessions (e.g. for the whole membership or staff)
- Holding and facilitating “kick-off” events – we help you set up the first circles and the General Circle. This can be, for example, a two-day event with deeper training, formal adoption, and “flipping the switch” into your new governance system.
- Designing your circle structure and key roles, as well as documenting your governance system (see our samples and templates)
- Aligning your documents and bylaws with sociocracy
How to find a consultant that fits your needs
Experience & Sector
Language & Geography
Chemistry & Culture
You need a consultant that has the experience you’re looking for and understands your sector. We are connected to consultants from a wide variety of sectors like business, nonprofits, co-op, intentional community, schools.
If in-person support is crucial for your needs, it’s essential to consider the geographical aspect. Additionally, language plays a significant role, and we are connected with consultants proficient in a wide array of languages to cater to your requirements
The magic ingredient is chemistry! Looking under the hood in an organization and having open conversations about power and performance requires trust. You want to work with someone you like and trust.
Picking a consultant
With SoFA, you have two options:
Work with a SoFA consultants
Find a consultant in the wider network
✔ experienced, certified consultants and trainers
✔ established teams for bigger projects
✔ more choices, languages, places
✔ some consultants in the network might be able to work with lower rates
SoFA’s consultants
Ted Rau
Amherst, MA, USA
[email protected]
English, German
Ted is an advocate, trainer and consultant for self-governance with sociocracy. After his PhD in linguistics, he encountered peer-oriented governance systems and became curious about ways of organizing grassroots groups effectively yet equitably. He is co-founder and Executive Director (leader of the General Circle) of Sociocracy For All. Ted identifies as a transgender man; he has 5 children between 10 and 20. He is a German citizen and moved to the US in 2010.
Ted is the author of Who Decides Who Decides (2021) and Collective Power (2023), and co-author of the sociocracy reference manual Many Voices One Song (2018). Read his articles on the SoFA page, on medium an in this LinkedIn Newsletter.
His experience is with business, nonprofits, academia, and multi-stakeholder organizations.
Nora Plaza
Chiclana de la Frontera, Cadiz, Spain
[email protected]
Spanish, English
Consultant and trainer in Sociocracy. Full-time staff in Sociocracy For All in several of the International Circles and the Operational leader of Sociocracia Práctica.
Consultora y formadora en Sociocracia. Ella trabaja para Sociocracy For All en varios de los Círculos Internacionales. Nora es la Coordinadora de Sociocracia Práctica.
Jerry Koch-Gonzalez
Based in Amherst MA, USA
Languages: English, Spanish
Jerry has been committed to nonviolent social change all his adult life. He started his career with anti-oppression (especially classism), then became a certified trainer of Nonviolent Communication/NVC, facilitation, consensus. In the last 10 years, he has focused on his work in sociocracy. Jerry used to be part of The Sociocracy Consulting Group, and he is co-founder of Sociocracy For All where he now works full time. Jerry was born in Cuba and immigrated to the USA as a child. He has lived in community all of his life, since 1994 in Pioneer Valley Cohousing.
Jerry is the co-author of the sociocracy reference manual Many Voices One Song. See his content on this page.
Working with SoFA’s consultants
Services
Skills
Pricing
Full-service implementation, remote and in person
Training on all levels
Sectors: business, nonprofit workplaces
Languages:
English, Spanish, German
Tier 1: $120/hour
Tier 2: $200/hour
Get a coaching package
Find a consultant in SoFA’s network – SoFA Members List
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Ted Rau
Language: Español
Ted spends most of his time training and consulting in sociocracy and leading SoFA as an organization. Ted is co-author of the sociocracy handbook Many Voices, One Song. He enjoys writing articles, and teaching meeting facilitation. People and their universal need to connect and move things are at the center of his attention. He pays attention to the co-housing movement, transgender rights, and non-violent communication.
Outside of SoFA work, Ted is a parent of 5, former linguist, and singer-songwriter. His first career was in Academia where he worked in syntax/semantics and pragmatics — and the big question of what’s a fact from a linguistic perspective. Within the last few years, his life has changed in big ways. He worked full time, then spent 3 years as a stay-at-home homeschooling parent, now is back to working full time again. In the same time frame, he’s done his gender transition.
The training in linguistics taught Ted to find patterns that work well for the human mind, to work empirically, and break things down so they can be understood. Being a parent of 5 had taught him to be extremely pragmatic… maybe this earned him the label of being a “manifestor”; at the end of the day, dinner must be on the table no matter whether the new vision statement is done!
Publications:
Books
- Many Voices One Song. Shared power with sociocracy. Institute For Peaceable Communities. 2018. (with Jerry Koch-Gonzalez)
- Who decides who decides? How to start a group so everyone can have a voice. Institute For Peaceable Communities. 2021.
Articles (not including external and republished articles)
- Ted’s articles on SoFA page
- Ted’s articles on medium
- Highlighted articles:
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Laureen Golden
Language: Español
Fascinated by “Deep Technologies of Transformation” and what Paul Hawkins named as “the largest social movement in human history”, Laureen supports “Paradigm-Shifters” who want to be more effective and create greater impact.
Who is a Paradigm Shifter? A visionary …
- forging new paths towards a world where all needs matter
- restoring wholeness and well-being within the systems they care most about
- healing themselves to heal their family, school, organization, communities, ecosystem and world
- playing their part in catalyzing game-changing, world-wide, whole-system social transformation
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Vincent van der Lubbe
Language: Español
Vincent is a management consultant focusing on continuous improvement and respect for people, based in Europe, with 15 years working experience in and with small to large organisations. He realized that most existing problems in organisations are caused by the system of thinking. Becoming aware of these assumptions and mental models, understanding and changing them to create more sustainable impact became his mission. Vincent reads about 2 books a week, because he’d rather do one day’s of good work by learning from people who have done it before than twenty years of bad. He enjoys keeping up to date on emerging practices and making approaches like Sociocracy/Holacracy, Lean and agile, Kanban, NVC, Clean Language, UX, Digital Analytics and systems thinking useful for clients. Recently he has started translating books on agile into german to help spread sustainable working practices.
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Nara Pais
Language: Español
Nara spent 18 years in the corporate world, particularly in project management. She has a Masters in Business IT and PMP-PMI certification. She made a transition traveling by ecovillages and dwelling 2 years in Findhorn, Scotland. Since 2009, she studied interpersonal and intrapersonal topics, such as Biopsychology, Dragon Dreaming, Sociocracy, NVC and Coaching.
At the moment, she serves as a consultant in the area of self-management and collaboration. She is co-founder of BioInspiral, a collective of consultants, coaches, and trainers who seek to resemble a regenerative culture in the organization and of Sociocracia Brasil, teaching and consulting there.
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Andy Grant
Language: Español
Andy connected early on with SoFA. He was in the first Sociocracy Leadership Training (SoLT) and the first round of the SoFA Academy. As a resident in the same cohousing community with Ted Rau and Jerry Koch-Gonzalez, he was also the first paid employee beyond the founders joining them at their kitchen table.
Andy is a SoFA-certified sociocracy facilitator and is actively using sociocracy to help with the formation of a community-driven food policy council and other projects.